Monday 25th November
We’ve been here a few days now and it will only be the weather forcing us southwards, (It rained a little bit in the night.)
Here we are in the aire. There is a path just behind us that leads down to the “official” aire where the services are.
The other side of the aire is a leisure complex with football pitches, covered swimming pool and half a dozen funny tennis courts. Question for Giorgio, what is it they are playing? They have solid rackets, no tramlines and can bounce the ball off the back and rear side walls. It doesn’t seem to matter if they play singles, doubles or single against doubles.
St Feliu is a very old town, this is part of the monastery dating back to roman times. That’s all the culture you’re getting from me today.
The bay forms a natural harbour so has been used for many years as a fishing port. The sand looks like it was delivered by Travis Perkins yesterday. Just behind the sand there is a large flat area where shipbuilding used to take place until fairly recently, 1950 ish. Just behind this are the restaurants and then lots of streets jammed full of shops of every kind. You can see how the town has developed over the years and there are information boards everywhere telling you the stories of the town.
On Saturday we took a walk north along the coast and found a large group of climbers traversing the cliffs. They are all ties on to wires which you may be able to just see but must still have been very thrilling.
As we were returning from our walk we saw a large group of people on the pavement buying and selling something but couldn’t quite work out what they were.
Any guesses? They are the metal tops off the tops of Cava and Champagne bottles and were selling for up to €45 each (and you didn’t get to drink anything!)
Would you believe that there is a museum dedicated to them. I wish I had started up my museum of beer mats.
Sunday we went off for another walk aiming to go round the coast to the south this time and “accidentally” found a huge market. It was in the flat area between the beach and the restaurants. This woman was selling short boots for €15 a pair, no wonder she was so busy.
In the next street back they were selling fresh fruit, some of it was very exotic and the citrus fruits were amazingly cheap.
Also, some of the freshest meat we’ve ever seen in a market. One thing that did impress us was a that not only were all the restaurants open as you may expect but all the other shops were open. Don’t forget this is mid day on a Sunday, and they were still open when we were returning from our walk at 2pm although there were signs that they were about to close.
This is the view from the other side of the bay, very pretty, not over commercialised, some low rise hotels on the edge of town but the town still had some of it’s old world feel. This is our first Spanish town and we like it here, can’t decide whether to move on today or stay another day.
I see that you are going by the book on aires, have you ever tried this site as it is the largest amount of sites bar none. http://www.campingcar-infos.com/Francais/recherche.php
I have it on my hard-drive just in case of no wi-fi, plus I use aires camping car (France) on my mobile, which finds the nearest aire to you and will link straight to mapping software on the phone.
Great blog and photos.
Bloody cold here in Upminster 6c top temperature.
Robert
I’ve always used that site but didn’t get the download version, might do though, we have noticed that we are seeing far more aires than are in the book. We have an app called motorhome parkings which works offline which is very good although most of the comments are in French or Dutch.
Much warmer here, not been below 15 during the day but it has rained rather a lot.
Mark and Lucy – first of all and once again thank you so much for your regular reports. I (and presumably others) feel like we are travelling with you. All very enjoyable.
Question for Giorgio, what is it they are playing? They have solid rackets, no tramlines and can bounce the ball off the back and rear side walls. It doesn’t seem to matter if they play singles, doubles or single against doubles.
From the photo it is difficult to tell conclusively. However, apart from Rafael Nadal and the Tennis Spanish Armada the Spaniards also play a number of variations such as Basque Pelota but it could equally be a game of Paddle Tennis (although there are no walls for the latter).
Essentially, for the benefit of the non-conoscenti, ball games similar to tennis can have a number of variations where courts, nets, racquets and balls will vary in dimensions to offer less complexity and more fun particularly suited to keep the ball in play.
At Hylands tennis club (I hope you do not mind I add my club in the commentary) we play a variations called touchtennis with 21 inches racquets, shorter nets and 6 x 12 metre courts. It is a lot of fun.
I have included a link to images for paddle tennis and one for basque pelota
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=paddle+tennis&es_sm=122&biw=1680&bih=959&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=81lzVIe-K9bnoATRgYK4Ag&sqi=2&ved=0CDIQsAQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_pelota
Hi Lucy & Mark,
Everything looks to be going really well for you and we’re very pleased. It seems ages since you left. We’ve missed you being in Upminster for all sorts of reasons!!! We’ve been going along in our usual way, lots of music but not as much as usual in the run up to xmas. We can definitely be more chilled.
Hoping to get in some walks over the next couple of months – trying to get fitter.
Keep well and take in the culture, as well as the drinks.
Love Jill & Ian xx